


Two Steps Forward

by Ylevihs



Series: How Not to Fall [30]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Dream Logic, Established Relationship, Gore, Heartbreak, Implied Sexual Assault, M/M, Medical Horror, Nightmare, Retribution Spoilers, Vomiting, mad dog - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 16:37:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20727380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ylevihs/pseuds/Ylevihs
Summary: Not a real step back





	Two Steps Forward

Dread pulled at his stomach, twisting it up into his throat. Down into his knees. Nothing on him was hurt but the fiber optic edge of every nerve was screaming blind. There was a body behind him, out of sight but not of mind. Richard knew the shape. Knew every stray hair and freckle and the way the skin on the lips would. Not yet. Hadn’t reached that point yet but it was coming.

He’d seen this movie more than once.

Does it smell? Did it? It smelled like concrete dust and sun baked asphalt and rot. Slick sweet and putrefying. Not that bad yet. Not when they’d shown up but it was coming with the bodies and the flies and the heat and the.

No vomit in his throat. There would be soon. None. Bodies ahead of him. Blurred everywhere except where it was in crystal clear focus. The slant of Steel’s shoulders. Powerful. Useless. And the other figure turned and there was a moment of flooding relief that it wasn’t Marshal Charge, but Ricardo. Grey threaded at the temple where he tried to hide it and mustache prickling out on his upper lip. The relief faded.

Terror wrapped itself sticky around his throat and tightened until he felt his windpipe crack. He tried to wheeze and failed. Let his hands twitch at his sides as if the random movements could help dispel the. Searing and impotent. Nothing to be done. Nothing to do but wait. And watch. And know. Richard swallowed it back, focused on wrestling it down. He’d done it before. He could do it again. Blind panic gave way to something more insidious and far harder to manage. A little bit more of the world started drifting out of his reach. He started losing pieces. Little slips in the corners of his eyes. And then.

And then.

And then.

Ricardo’s hand was firm on his shoulder. He opened his mouth to speak, already issuing firm and steady orders. Years of being Marshal had changed things in him. Even if he couldn’t see them. The fear tempered with resolve. Every inch a hero.

“Ortega?” the name whispered through miles of soggy cotton in his throat and Ortega’s attention snapped back to him. Direct and unyielding. Again. Words. None of them made it into Richard’s ears. “What the hell is,” he knew. He knew what was happening but his mouth said it anyway. For all that it mattered. Charge didn’t react.

Chen was speaking. Steel was speaking. Not Chen, not yet. Glaring up at him and still managing to glare down his nose at Sidestep. A heavy wind with the stench of fresh death slapped whatever words the Marshal. Not Marshal Steel, still not. Wei Chen’s words out of his mouth. Steel seemed unfazed. Waiting for an answer, but how could anyone have heard anything with that wind? Like screaming. Someone spoke behind Richard’s shoulders and he didn’t recognize.

Who was that?

He turned and the figure, familiar, he knew every stray hair and freckle and the way the skin would. Not yet. Didn’t catch them as they darted by, confident and sure. A bright spot. Catching up with.

When did they? Richard had to run to catch up. He could have been running in the other direction why wasn’t he running in the other direction why did he have to. Because he had to. It was that simple. To do otherwise would be.

“Anathema?” Not Anathema. The shape was wrong but it was still them. The door was open because of them. They slapped their palms together like they were proud of what they’d done.

It wasn’t fair. The knowing of it. Of what was beyond the door and that he couldn’t do a single thing to change the outcome. How in the hell was that fair? That he be allowed to know this wasn’t real and not be. Not be able to. Charge first, true to the name. Steel next. Players on a stage. Clay pigeons waiting for the shotgun blast. Sidestep’s feet moving forward and every inch of Richard’s mind furious that he couldn’t pull them back. Turn. Run. Abandon the. Couldn’t do that. Not in his programming. Can’t leave a man behind. Can’t leave his men behind. They weren’t all going to die anyway. Just Anathema. Just him. Ortega, every inch a hero, he could save Steel and save himself. Choose Steel over him. Shrieking at him through thousands of layers of earth; dull edged fingernails, ragged for the digging, skittering along his veins. Stop it.

Stop it, you can stop it, you can if you just. _Get it together._

Already at the stairwell. Decisions decisions and who had made the choice to go in this way? Had it been the Marshal? Had Sidestep insisted? Not Anathema. Who the hell? Not them. He knew every stray hair and freckle and the way his skin. Not his. Their. Not. Charge and Steel up the stairs and it wasn’t Anathema.

Richard felt his legs stop working, heavier than they had ever felt in his life. Sealed to the floor as though the soles of his boots and the concrete were one in the same. It wasn’t Anathema behind him. Just over his shoulder. Breathing in quick and uneven and bringing hands—oh god, he knew those hands—up to his face and covering it. Blonde hair peeking through the spread of the fingertips. Fingertips sinking in as the flesh gave way like so much silly putty. Blood and puss and mushy, mottled skin slip slip slipping down into palms and down forearms and splatting on the floor. Globs of flesh, ruined from the acid, fusing with the grime and debris.

It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real and if he didn’t look it would be alright. It wasn’t Anathema and he knew who it was and he didn’t know who it was because who else could it be but. Don’t look don’t look don’t look don’t. A snapping sound. Sharp conversation. Screams.

Daniel started screaming and Richard couldn’t help it.

Smoke filled the air. Car alarms. Sirens. The snip snap of camera shutters and Daniel’s body when Richard turned to look was halfway crumpled into the car. People were running, frantic. Charge wouldn’t show up in time. Not in time to really stop the damage, damn him. One more step—if it could even be called that—and Mad Dog easily put his boot against the young. Young and fresh and who the fuck did this little up and eager think he was? Boy scout son of a bitch. Every inch a hero. Blood at the corners of his mouth, little splotches of red on his perfect lips and such unadulterated terror in his eyes. Screaming terrible and animal pure as his kneecap split, feel the bone resist and then aha. Pop! Snap. Crack. Give way and Mad Dog’s armored fists descended. Kept descending and didn’t stop. Broke the forearm that came to shield his face. Pushed him harder into the twisted hulk of car metal that was digging into his side where the rib had cracked and Richard knew the thin and flinchy bundle of nerves that Mad Dog was forcing against a jagged edge of glass and drinking it in.

Herald was sure he was going to die. Blind and resolute terror smacked Mad Dog in the throat and he laughed, delighted. Powerful. Going to die going to die going to oh my god he’s going to kill me and this was real.

This was real it was real it was clear and present danger catch in the back of the throat and hang nail real really happening he was to die.

“Richard,”

Punched him in the back of the head. Richard felt his head snap forward and looked down at the pile of Anathema’s face on the ground. Finally his feet obeyed and he was running, up the stairs. Through the door, press the push bar down and was nearly overwhelmed by the caustic clean and vague and distant bodily fluid smell.

Sterility. Nice and neat and someone was shouting at him for running in the hallway. He passed Mitzi’s room, a dark and dingy grey spot in an otherwise stark white and sickeningly long passage and why would they design it like this? Richard’s run lost a fraction of urgency. Gained a fraction.

He needed to find it.

Ortega was up the elevator on the third or second or ninety first floor. Out of reach that wasn’t where. Where was he? Where was he going? Richard’s pace was steady but his knees had gone to jelly. Each step less steady than the last and the corridor was too bright. It made the reflection in the glass too strong. That was the point. Was that the point? There was something in his throat and he had to swallow hard to keep from choking on it. Choking up.

Not in his throat? Not his reflection. Not him.

Beyond his reflection the body on the hospital bed was unrecognizable. They’d tried grafts. Alien looking patches that bubbled and blistered on the edges until they’d been forced to peel them back off. Joshua jolted. Oxygen rattling the chest as it was forced into lungs and forced against the diaphragm. Shuddering the torso. They never showed that on TV. The way the body spasmed as medical science kept meat alive. Not brain dead but trapped in there anyway. So heavily sedated and drugged that he may as well have been. He felt his cheeks grow hot and wet and let them.

The body shuddered again and lifted itself up, scabs and blisters snapping off what could count as skin in name only. Sticking to the linens, dried with blood that snapped apart sea salt crust and boiled in the veins. Steaming as it cooled in the air. Its head turned, knowing where to look. It had no eyes, the eyes couldn’t survive the heat and had shriveled and the fat of his cheeks had fried the skin of his cheeks and it. He. Joshua turned to look and split his face in half with grinning.

“Make me proud, Danny,”

Down the hallway. The creak of gurney wheels and agony and quick footsteps. Quicker words. Angry profanity and the steady sound of clicking click click click. Had to. Couldn’t run. Strapped down at the ankles and. Richard pulled weakly at the restraints on his wrists but exhaustion was weaving through his muscle fibers. He was too tired to keep his eyes open but too wrecked to sleep. Wouldn’t matter. They’d pump him full of. Not yet. They had tests to run first.

Why did he feel like he wasn’t alone?

One of the interns keeping pace beside the gurney was staring at him in fascination and every time they were certain the attending wasn’t looking, pressed a sly thumb against the incision on his hip, watching the skin pucker against the sutures. The pain was dull but overwhelming. Richard screamed and made a sound like a dying breeze. It was hard to make any sound around the plastic tubing down his throat. The…doctor? Chuckled at his attempt and patted his shoulder. Companionable.

“Don’t worry,” didn’t recognize the voice. There had been too many to place a voice and a face together. Most of them had been half hidden behind sterile masks in any case. The ones who hadn’t. Hadn’t been their faces which had stuck in his memory. The gurney was being parked and dread climbed up the tube in his gullet. They were going to move him. Pick up his shell and fumble it over to a more bed like construct that would make it easier to. Easier to.

One of the intern’s hands on the g-tube. Latex glove around the hard plastic. Ripping up up upwards. The other hand on the edge of his. Latex glove on metal. Zipping down. 

“We’ll give you something to really scream about, Richie, Richie, Richard,”

Ah. There was the vomit.

Richard managed to scramble off the side of the bed, knees hitting hard on the ground with a terrible cracking sound. His bad hip gave out from the impact, and his rib grumbled from the stretch, but his groping hands found the waste bin and pulled it in close enough to empty his stomach into it. Once. Twice. Dry retching as his body did what could to clear out everything it thought was poisoning him. Good luck with that. Hand hand hand hand on his back, Richard’s mind skittered. Curled in on himself like a dying spider, trying to block out any. The hand snatched itself away.

Oh.

It was.

The rest of his mind caught up with him right around the time Daniel landed softly, crouching next to him on the ground.

“Sorry,” his throat felt rawer than it had recent memory, voice cracking along the shards of glass embedded in his windpipe. Richard was too frayed to focus on blocking any of it, and so Daniel’s concern slipped easily along the currents of his own thoughts. The hand resettled on his shoulder. Warm and hesitant. And then more sure of itself, rubbing between his shoulder blades. “It. Just a nightmare,” Another set of fingers appeared on his bicep, shifting him. Bringing him to lean slightly against the bare skin of Daniel’s chest.

A heavy silence that communicated very effectively, yeah, no shit. “Sorry,” he repeated, meaning it. Some of those nightmares hadn’t been his own and the thought that his own terror had seeped into Daniel’s head in the night made his stomach turn again. A thick wad of bile made it up against his tongue and Richard spat heavily. Breathed out ragged through his nose and ah, beans, he was shaking. Trembling against the. Daniel shifted him closer and icy electric heat stabbed into his hip and twisted. Richard clung to it. Twisted harder and sent it scrabbling up his vertebrae until it settled at the base of his neck and bellowed. Good. Anchoring. Real pain that hunkered into the hollow spaces of his spinal cord and.

“S’okay,” Daniel’s voice was heavy with sleep—Richard didn’t even need to brush anything anywhere near his mind to feel that Daniel’s own night terrors were slipping out his memory. Already the details of it was fogging up and flagging away. Lips on his temple. Soft and warm. “Lemme get y’some water,” mumbled but genuine, drifting upwards with a gentle push off against Richard’s shoulder.

Richard stayed where he had crumpled on the ground and tried to breathe steadily. Tried to force himself back in a calmer space. The overhead light flicked on and Richard flinched slightly with the blind of it, turning his eyes back to the floorboards. He could feel Daniel floating closer and shakily pressed himself into a sitting position, back against the side of the bed and waste bin between his legs.

Daniel settled beside him, cross legged on the ground, and offered him the. Caught the glass. Richard’s hands were shaking too much to keep a grip on it. Ha. Wasn’t that just perfect? There was a quiet and empty measure and then Daniel pressed the glass back into Richard’s grasp and wrapped his own fingers around, holding it steady for him. 

“Rough one?”

The snort Richard made sounded nothing like derision and everything like weak fear. There was a split second of debate. A quick glance, barely a fraction of a second, and Daniel had already forgotten what his own nightmares had been about. It wouldn’t be worth it to bring them back up.

“Yeah. I’ll be fine,” Richard muttered, completely unsure if he was lying or not.

Daniel shifted and his arm wrapped around Richard’s shoulders. Welcome warmth and pressure and heat.

“I know you will be,” and he did mean it. And it helped.


End file.
